Into the Breach
by MagusRockwell
Summary: She came out of nowhere, and she's going to kill him. A story of guilt, anger, revenge, and connection.   Still in progress.
1. Chapter 1

I waited for him to wake. I sat at his side, watching the the muscles on his face and neck start to tense. His eyes flickered open, then shot to me. He unthinkingly tested every restraint I had put in place; I found I was glad that I had overdone it. Realizing that there was no way out, he looked at me, less bewildered or scared than he should have been.

"You know why you're here?" I asked quietly.

He didn't answer. I found that I cared little. A calm fell over me; I stood, feeling as if I had all the time in the world.

"You don't beg enough for someone in your situation," I said, bland.

"Sorry to disappoint," he said, his eyes following me as I paced at the foot of the iron bedframe.

"I doubt that." I flashed him a smile—a smile?—and stilled, leaning on the bedframe. "Now is a good time to convince me you're innocent."

I began to circle the bed, never taking my eyes off of him.

"You don't look like you are easily convinced of anything," Morgan replied, as calm as I was.

"You're not dead," I answered reasonably.

"You kill me, you're going to do it without any proof of my guilt—of whatever it is you think I'm guilty of." He nodded to me. "My gift to you."

"You have no confidence that you could persuade me of your innocence, then." I watched his chest; he breathed a little bit faster than someone at rest.

"What do you accuse me of?" he asked, his eyes still following me as I paced.

"Of killing Mal Stevens."

"I didn't do it. There, are you convinced?"

"Do you _want _to die?" I snarled.

Something in his look changed. "That makes it harder, doesn't it?" he asked quietly.

I ignored that. "Why did you do it?" I demanded evenly.

He watched me for a moment. What was he considering? He was going to die, but I could make his last minutes much more painful if he chose not to answer.

Finally, he spoke. "Because he killed the Maybell Center children."

My brother had died for a false blame. I had stopped pacing. Trembling too hard to think straight. "You fool," I whispered. "Someone was convicted. He went to a goddamned asylum."

"They caught the wrong man. He _was _insane, a homeless drunk, but he didn't rape and murder those children."

"My brother certainly didn't."

"He did. I saw him with one of their bodies. I found his traces on her skin."

I fell to all fours and vomited. It took me a few minutes before I could stand again. "You're lying. If that had been so, why was the case never brought to him?"

"Because Carson had already been convicted."

"And that kind of evidence wouldn't have stood up in court?"

"Not with your father in the way," he answered, watching my face. My father, the police chief.

"My father didn't set anyone up," I said unflinchingly.

"Public prejudice and someone's faulty vision were not enough to convict him."

I dismissed that, unable to process anything else. "It couldn't have been Mal. He didn't have it in him." My brother. My brother.

"But you still know it."

Every muscle in my body tensed. I snatched up my knife, wanting his blood on the floor. Standing over him, I stilled, everything froze. He watched me, silent, waiting.

I let the knife drop to the floor and staggered backwards, leaning against the wall for support.

Every body that had been found in the woods behind our house had shaken Mal. It hurt him, my fragile brother, whose rawness he only ever showed to me. What had happened to him before he came to live with us I'll never know, but these children had reawakened those memories. I've never seen anyone as shaken.

Morgan was right. I knew it. I could not possibly believe it, accept it, but I already knew.

Blank, I sank to the floor, staring blindly ahead.

Time passed.

What was I going to do? All drive to kill this man in front of me was gone; I could barely move.

But what would happen if I did not? How could I free Morgan without him overpowering me? Would he kill me, too?

I woke up somewhere dark. I tried to move, but my hands were behind my back, tied. So were my feet. I struggled violently, screaming—muffled through the duct tape covering my mouth.

I was in a car, I thought—on the move. In the trunk? Would I suffocate? I tried to slow my breathing. How had the bastard gotten me? Was it even him? What had happened?


	2. Chapter 2

What had happened?

I twisted my wrists, trying to loosen my bonds. It felt heavy, like handcuffs. I couldn't make anything budge, there or on my feet. Writhing, I cast about desperately for some plan. Was he going to kill me? Dispose of me, now that I knew? Wouldn't that be ironic.

I felt the car pull to a stop. Too tense to breathe, I waited for the trunk to open; it was him. There was a syringe in his hand; I screamed as loudly as I could, and he quickly pushed it into my skin. Everything went dark.

I woke up on a bathroom floor, my head pounding horribly. My mouth was uncovered now; I screamed, my ears pounding with the noise. Nothing happened. Everything but my clothes were gone: phone, bag, keys.

My arm was cuffed to a wall support next to the toilet. Casting about, I looked for something to pick the lock—but there was nothing. I kicked it as hard as I could, hurting my arm and accomplishing nothing.

I stayed there for hours, trying to break out. The only result was a skinned wrist and bruised body; nothing worked. Nobody heard me. Was I in a basement somewhere? My stomach turned. Would anyone ever find me? Was he ever coming back?

I glanced at the sink. I could reach it, I thought. I could survive for at least a few weeks with just water. It was a horrible prospect, but I was too frightened to be scared of it.

Time drained more slowly than I could bear, but there was nothing else I could do but sit and try to think of other ways to get out. The ache in my head reached such a pitch, I had to throw up again. Good thing I was by a toilet, I thought darkly.

If he was going to kill me, would he have done it already? Or was the abandoned house I had taken him too conspicuous a place for him to get rid of me? Did he just want to torture me by abandoning me here? Would my father already be looking for me? I had left nothing to tell him where I was going—how would he ever know? I had no idea how far Morgan had driven me; we could be states away, for all I knew.

I vomited again, getting dizzier by the minute. I tried to drink something from the sink, but I couldn't hold it down.

When Morgan came back, even the adrenaline couldn't get me to my feet. I stared up at him, my mouth feeling as though it was stuffed with cotton.

"You're sick?" he asked. I didn't answer.

He came back with a pill. "This is for the nausea."

Perhaps I should have fought him off, but he probably would have been able to force it in me anyway. I took it.

He left and came back with blankets. "I'm sorry," he said, wrapping one around my shoulders. I was sweating profusely, but I was shivering. "You're reacting to the sedative." He got me a cup of water and told me to sip it, sitting on the edge of the bathtub to watch.

When I felt the room stop spinning, I spoke. "What are you going to do with me?"

"I don't know."

I hugged the blanket closer around my shoulders. "Why?"

He didn't answer.

"Look, could you at least un-cuff me? It's not like I'm getting anywhere fast." I thought I was probably lying, but it was worth a shot. My arm hurt from being held above my head for so long.

"No." He went to the medicine cabinet beyond my reach and got out some kind of ointment and gauze. Sliding the cuff up my arm a little, he dressed the wounds I had inflicted. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not going to tell anyone," I told him. "I won't. Please let me go."

He gave no indication that he had heard me. I wondered vaguely if crying would make any difference. It might annoy him enough to kill me.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. I shook my head. "I'll come back tomorrow." He left, shutting bathroom door. I heard it lock, heard something being dragged in front of it to brace it. My heart sank. I was in for a long night.

I stretched over to the sink, opening the cabinet I already knew was empty at its base. Rummaging blindly at the plumbing of the sink, I searched for something I could use to pick or break the lock. My eyes fixed on the soap. _Of course. _Why had I not thought of it before?

I cupped water from the sink onto my cuffed arm and soaped it thoroughly.

It took a long time, and I found tears running down my face; it hurt. But I got it off.

Bleeding profusely, I stumbled to the medicine cabinet and got more bandages, managing to stem the blood. What now?

The door was locked—from the outside, of course. The door was metal (what kind of person had a metal door for their basement bathroom?) and locked from the outside. Shit.

I looked to the hinges, and got back after the sink, somehow wrenching out a pipe. There were tweezers in the cabinet; I used the pipe as a hammer, the tweezers as a pick, and tapped out the hinge pins.

The only way I could put leverage on the door was to stuff my fingers in the crack along the bottom and pull. It took me several tries, but I managed to yank it out—it fell heavily on me, bruising my hands and head. I cursed violently, curling up in pain.

It was a freezer he had dragged in front of the door. I shoved at it, but nothing happened. After sitting back and looking at it for a moment, I heaved the door over and wedged sideways into the door frame, throwing my weight against the protruding side. The leverage worked; the freezer scraped slowly across the concrete floor, finally giving me enough room to squeeze out.

Heart pounding with exultation, I cast about for the way out. I clattered noisily up the stairs—if nobody had come with the noise from that freezer, then the place was definitely empty—and reached the top, finding that door unlocked.

He was there. He was right there. I froze, terrified, too shocked to react. He pushed me to the wall and injected me again as I started to fight. For the third time that day, I blacked out.


	3. Chapter 3

Even before I opened my eyes, I knew I was well and truly bound now. Sure enough, my feet were cuffed, my hands were cuffed, and they were all connected by another set. I was already aching from the contortion.

"_Fuck_," I snarled. He came into my line of vision, looking down at me. Was I on a table?

"You're not giving me much choice, here," Morgan said dryly. He got me sitting upright; with my knees tucked under my chin, I could sit a little more comfortably. "More for nausea," he explained before sticking another pill into me. I rested my forehead on my knees. Tears of exhaustion were forming behind my eyes; I tried to force them back.

"Please, just let me go," I whispered. "I swear, I won't tell anyone."

"I can't take that chance."

"Are you going to kill me?"

He didn't answer.

Panic settled on me like a blanket. I fought it, squeezing my legs to my chest.

I spent a miserable night, terrified and aching on the table. He slept in the room with me, somewhere beyond my range of vision. I jumped awake as he undid the shackles around my ankles and hauled me to the bathroom, standing beside me the whole time. There was no way I could go with him there, even though I needed to. Humiliated and flushed, I was marched back to the table and shackled again. He put two bottles of water and some food—a sandwich and a banana—on the table with me, and left. I heard doors close, lock. I heard a garage door. I heard a car drive away.

I screamed more, to no avail. Where did he live? My father would certainly be looking for me by now.

No such escape opportunities were available now. I craned my neck, examining every inch my eyes could see, but there was no chance. The room I was in was almost empty, but I could make out the edge of a cot—where he must have slept. I was still in the basement, but in a different room. Morgan had left me blankets again; I was glad. It was cold in here when I couldn't move.

What would best convince him to let me go? I could try to seduce him, but that would just make me more vulnerable, not give me any power. He might not even unchain me to do it. Was he crazy? Could I reason with him? Even by best reason, though, he would be crazy to let me go. How much of a conscience did he have? He had killed my brother believing him to be a pedophile. Would he kill me because I merely posed a threat to him?

My escape stunt had scared him, I knew. It had demonstrated that he would not be able to trust me. Fuck. But how could he expect me to stay put willingly?

The day crept by. I hesitated to eat or drink anything that he had left, but I had to conclude that he wouldn't have poisoned anything. Clearly, he could face the person he was killing; my brother was evidence. They had found a knife wound clear through his heart. So I ate and drank.

There was no clock to track time by, and no window by which to judge the day. I slipped in and out of sleep, trying to come up with some way to convince him to let me go.

He returned alone, smelling clinical somehow; I guessed that was part of where he worked. I knew he was in the police department for analyzation, but I wasn't sure of the particulars. Morgan didn't say anything to me, didn't even look me in the eye, but unlocked everything but the cuffs on my wrists and led me to the bathroom again. Shyness did not stop me this time, though I still flushed with anger. He locked me up again, left, and came back with a folding chair and food. "Here," he said, setting a wrapped hamburger and drink on the table. Taking a seat, he started to eat his, watching me.

"How are you feeling?" he asked me.

"All right," I answered.

"No nausea? Headaches?"

"No." I shifted, though I had long since decided I was going to spend the rest of my days in discomfort.

"How are your hands?"

I looked down at them. My left wrist was still mangled from being chained in the bathroom, and both hands had dark bruises where the steel door had fallen on them. "Ok, I think."

He stood and opened my palms, examining them. My skin went clammy. "Nothing's broken."

I wondered if I purposefully broke my arm, he would feel bad enough about it to take me to the hospital. Then again, if that failed, I didn't fancy the thought of dying in agony of an infection or something.

Morgan sat back down, taking a drink as if he had ceased to exist down here at all. What preoccupied him so?

"Do you know what you're going to do with me?" I asked finally.

He shook his head. I couldn't bear this anymore; the agony of being trapped into stillness all day made me reckless.

"Well, _I_ think you ought to consider letting me go," I declared, my voice sharp.

"That's not going to work."

"Why? You've already—" I cut off, hearing the frantic noise in my voice and knowing whatever came out next would not help me. I rocked.

"You don't deserve this. I know. But I can't let you go," he told me quietly.

"Why?" I whispered.

"Your father's dead as well."

I stared at him. "_What?"_

Morgan looked at me evenly. "Your father is dead. I killed him."

I couldn't think, couldn't speak. How much was this man going to take from me?

"And what did _he _do?" I demanded, sounding crazily ordinary. "Rape someone? _WHAT?" _My voice shattered. I pressed my face to my knees, completely uncaring about the violent sobs that made the room echo.

"When I was looking into Mal, I saw several cases your father had covered up," Morgan explained evenly. "He has a knack for covering up cases when it benefits him."

"You killed him because he's a bad cop?" I said incredulously, staring at him.

"No. I killed him because he kills witnesses that hurt his cases." He paused, watching me cry with emotionless eyes. "Maureen Hoffman. Jeb Seller. Robert Blount."

The names rang bells. I couldn't respond, couldn't take another assault to my trust in my family.

If I possibly could have, I would have attacked him, torn out his eyes, rammed his stomach. Forced into this helplessness, I cried.

"I'm sorry that I've hurt you." He left the room, shutting me in alone.

Another miserable night. Up in the morning to use the bathroom, then chained again. Neither of us spoke. He left me with food and water, departed for work.

I thought I might develop sores from this metal table. How odd it was, that the conditions of some poor souls I had learned about in history classes would actually recur in my life. Most of the time my life had spent itself on was faded, murky, but a few moments stood out to me like lumps in my mouth that I could never swallow away. I kept my voice at a low hum, the habit of my childhood self, tricking myself into believing that the noise could block off the bad thoughts. Perhaps Morgan knew that this was the worst he could do to me; maybe he knew that being trapped in my mind was the worst prison anyone could conceive. But I doubted he understood that I would never, ever stop fighting to get out.

My best chance was one of the bathroom visits. Could I steal something to get myself free with? From the sink, anything? If I pretended to be unconscious, would he unchain me to help me? It was worth a shot. Still with no means to measure time, I settled down a good while before I thought he would return, lying still on my side so that the chains wouldn't clank when he got back.

My heart started to pound when I heard the garage open. I lay very still, trying to force myself to calm. He didn't spend much time settling down upstairs; I heard his quiet footsteps coming down the stairs. I didn't even twitch when he unlocked and opened the door. I heard him pause, looking at me. Should I have waited for him to get less suspicious, let him get used to seeing me awake so that he would not be wary of me faking anything? Too late now.

He came over. I assumed he was looking at me, and I managed not to jump when he felt my wrist, looking for my pulse.

_Shit_. My pulse couldn't have been even. Then again, would that necessarily give me away? Would it be totally even if I was unconscious?

Sure enough, he took out his keys and began to unlock me. Should I spring into action, or wait for some better opportunity? I stayed limp as he undid the chains connecting my handcuffs with the shackles on my ankles and carried me up the stairs. Could he feel how quickly my heart was beating?

All of my relief at my success drained when he took me to the bathroom. _Oh my god. He was going to kill me._

He placed me in the bathtub. I tensed to spring awake and away, still unsure what he was going to do and unwilling to open my eyes.

He turned on the shower faucet. Cold water hit me like a wall.

I gasped, my eyes flying open. I couldn't stop my heaving breaths, gripping the side of the bathtub. He held me in, watching me. I sputtered, ducking my head out of the blast of water.

"I know you're faking, but you needed a bath," he said. I lunged at him, but he held me easily; I was getting weak, and there was only so much I could hope to do with my hands anchored together.

"Phoebe!" He shouted, gripping my shoulders. I stilled, shivering. "Phoebe, I don't want to hurt you. You need to start believing me on that."

My words came out unevenly, tripping on my aching throat. "You don't want to hurt me, but you killed my family for reasons I still don't believe, you won't let me go, and you keep me chained to a metal table! What the fuck does it matter what I believe, Morgan?"

He grasped my handcuffs with one hand and shut off the spout with the other. Jerking me out of the bathtub, he hauled me, dripping, to a bedroom. I screamed; he clamped a hand over my mouth. "One more noise," he snarled into my ear. I heard something metal, and a knife flashed in front of my eyes. I shuddered and silenced. He moved me to the bed and sat me down, snatching up his laptop and opening it, keeping me between him and the computer. "Look," he said. He opened a program, typed in a password, opened the terminal, typed in something else, and opened a file. I tried to focus, rage and adrenaline warping my vision.

"Your father," Morgan said, "killed Maureen Hoffman because she knew that her rich boyfriend had killed her husband—and that boyfriend paid your father to keep it quiet. Here, see?" He opened a police report. "It says Avery Stanton, a salesman, killed Mrs. Hoffman. Stanton was guilty as sin, but not of this. He was too busy at his teenage girlfriend's house, but she was no alibi for him. Stanton blamed, Mrs. Hoffman dead, problem solved." Morgan opened another report. He opened up a video folder. "Your father had these hidden in your basement," he said. "Look."

They were the camera recordings from his police cruiser. I could hear her nervous greeting turn to horror, screaming. Gunshots.

There were two other cases that he opened and explained. Jeb Seller he had strangled; Robert Blount, shot.

"Do you remember the BMW your father bought?" Morgan asked. "Where do you think he got the money to do that? Do you have any idea how much debt he was in?" I didn't respond, staring at his screen. I didn't care if it was true. My god, what reality could he possibly hope to impress on me that would change the knife in my vision, the hopeless bars of flesh that held me from all freedom?

But then, the show-and-tell shifted to my brother. "These were in Mel's camera," Morgan said quietly. They were pictures of my brother. They must have been taken by Mel; I could see his arm extended. He had on gloves, a ski mask, and a condom, but I knew him—it was him. It was of the children, one at a time—still alive, terrified, doing what he was making them do. They went on and on, shot after shot. And I felt my will collapse.

"I can't look at this anymore," I whispered. Morgan shut the screen, his arms still caging me.

_Am I going to cry?_ I wondered, detached. Sure enough, my lungs started to give great spasms, and I could hardly breathe through it all. I felt him hesitate, then hold me closer, pulling me gently against his chest, rocking me.

"I'm surrounded by murderers," I choked out. His chest contracted—had I made him laugh? But he didn't stop rocking.

Shit, no wonder my danger radar had always been screwed up. It was because it was already saturated at home. Maybe it wasn't screwed up after all, but my outward reasoning had done the damage.

These thoughts, how could I be thinking them? Were they logic? How could one part of me still function when I had torn from beginning to end?

I cried, and cried again, waves of it, choking and hot and drowning. How could this pain not kill me? If I was dead, why did my body bother to cry? It seemed not to belong to me any more. None of this, none of this was mine. The only thing that existed was the pressure of a truth that had sliced into my unwilling mind, and I bled with it.

It took me a long, long time to realize that Morgan still held me, his arms wrapped securely around me, cradling me to him. And by then, I could not bring myself to care.


	4. Chapter 4

This was my chance, I realized. If I was strong, if I was quick, if he was deeply enough asleep, I could strangle him.

But he deserved it even less than my own family had.

Not my family. Neither were related to me by blood.

For one moment, I let myself forget it all. I was so tired. I could barely think anymore. I was warm, and the bed was soft. And Morgan, this man who still held me, had not harmed me. I had nearly killed him, was considering it only a minute ago, yet he had not taken advantage of me when I had been helpless.

It was morning. For the first time in days, I saw sunlight as it seeped in under the window shade. I squeezed my eyes shut, glad for it but wanting to sleep again, to sink into that safe unconsciousness in this warmth.

I felt him stir. He tensed, realizing someone was with him. His hands relaxed again, warm on my back. I craned my neck, looking up at him. He shifted away a bit to see me better.

"How did you kill him?" I asked. "My father?"

Everything about him stilled. He was fully awake now. "I stabbed him," he answered. "And I left his body somewhere it'll never be found." He swallowed. "On the records, he's just missing. Like you." He felt me tense up in horror. "I'm not—I'm not going to kill you."

I covered my eyes. "If I ever get out, they're going to think I did it." When I looked at him again, he was still watching me. "My life is gone."

"I'm so sorry, Phoebe," he said, his voice taking a strange turn.

I stared at him. "Why did you have to do it?"

He was silent for so long, I thought he might not answer. He cast his eyes over the room; I wondered if he realized he still had his arms around me, and that I was still bound.

"Because I take care of people who kill others. I get rid of them."

"But why? You work for the police. Why not do it through them?"

"The police miss things, or obscure them. Even the law itself abandons justice sometimes."

"And you decide it for us?"

"Were you going to?" he asked me. "Two days ago, would you have killed me if you were certain?"

"My.. Mel didn't kill your family. Neither did Steve."

"No, they didn't. But that does not make their end less just."

"I don't think what you do is about justice," I said, staring at him. He didn't answer.

With difficulty, I sat up. "I'd like to take a shower."

"All right." He got off the bed and opened his closet, getting a t-shirt and pants. There was no way they were going to fit me, but it was better than being naked. I stood on my own for the first time in days, unsteadily, still cuffed around the ankles.

"Here," Morgan said, getting the keys and quickly uncuffing my legs.

"Would you mind getting my hands, too?" I asked, feeling strange. He hesitated; he had no reason to trust me. "I… I'm not going to be able to get my shirt off," I explained.

He helped me off with the handcuffs as well, sitting on the sink and waiting for me as I showered. Relieved to finally be clean, I toweled off and dressed still behind the shower curtain, unwilling to be naked in front of him. In this context, privacy felt like a revolution.

"Where are your children?" I asked suddenly as I came out of the shower.

"At their grandparents'." Morgan gave me a strange look. "Why?"

"Because when I was researching you, I knew you had three."

"Two were my wife's children. The youngest was ours." Morgan swallowed.

"I'm sorry about what happened to your wife," I said quietly, squeezing out the water from my hair with his towel.

"Thanks." He hesitated, watching my face. "I've got to go to work."

"All right." That meant he needed to tie me up again. Crap.

"I don't particularly want to chain you up again."

"Me neither," I replied dryly. "Can you think of a better arrangement?" I knew as well as he did that he had no reason to trust that I wouldn't try to escape. "Nevermind. Just… today, could I have a book? I need something to put my mind to."

"Sure." He led me to his living room. I chose a poetry anthology and went downstairs. He bound my feet and hands, got me breakfast, and left without chaining me onto the table. Much better.

I listened for the garage door and departing car. As soon as I was positive he was gone, I hauled myself to my feet and half-waddled, half-bunny-hopped my way to the door. It was bolted, as I knew, but it would feel foolish not to try. I shoved my weight against it to try it, lifting the doorknob. I heard a click, and the steel door gave way, opening out.

What the hell? Was this a trick? I was instantly wary. How could he have left it like this?

"Hello?" I called out suspiciously. No answer.

I searched around the basement for a pair of garden shears, but there was nothing. I noted a shovel, but I wasn't looking for that much manual labor.

I sat on the stairs and pushed myself up one by one, all sixteen of them. Still jumpy, I searched about the house and got into the garage. There! Hanging on the wall, a pair of short-bladed, well-weighted shears. It took all of my weight to force it, but I cut the chain linking the cuffs on my hands and ankles.

Ohh, bliss. Sweet, sweet flexibility.

Stupidly, I hadn't even considered what I should do next. I assumed that he took my cuff keys with him, but perhaps there was another pair..? I strode quickly to his bedroom, still reveling in my freedom.

No such luck. I had no idea where to look. I rifled through the drawers, feeling under the cabinets to make sure there was nothing underneath. He was a neat freak; everything was neatly folded and organized. There were gloves—I put them on, knowing he was a cop and hoping to limit my prints. But for a few baby toys crammed under his dresser, there was nothing unusual there.

I lifted up his mattress, feeling all over for irregularities. Nothing. Nothing on the bedframe or box springs. His bedside table had an airhorn in it. Handy.

His closet was also well-organized, but I found a chest on the top shelf. I hauled it down to investigate: it held knives. My stomach turned. These had seen my family.

I quickly searched it for keys before closing it off and pushing it back on the shelf. I didn't even want to look at it.

Casting my eyes around the room for other options, I took the picture off of the wall and checked the back. Nothing behind it.

I carefully got the cover off of his air conditioner unit and peered inside. There was something in there.

Squinting, I reached in.

Yes, there were the keys. I immediately tried them on my cuffs, snapping them off with relish.

There was something else back there, I realized as I slipped the keys back in. I reached and brought out a case. When I opened it, all I saw were microscope slides—with red in the middle.

Trophies? My stomach turned, but I couldn't stop staring at them. What a disturbing collection. I put them back.

What now? Should I go to the police?

What on earth could I tell them?

_Hello, officers, is Dexter Morgan here? Oh, good, because he killed my family. No, he had no motive whatsoever._

I had no idea how I would explain how I knew he killed them without alluding to my own attempt to kill him. Then again, I could cast the whole thing as if he was trying to take out the whole family, and haul in his computer with all of the evidence on it.

I sat on the bed and thought, my head in my hands.

This whole time, I hadn't been able to face the question of whether or not my family was guilty. Could Morgan have made that stuff up to convince me?

But why would he want to? If they were lies, why not just kill me?

The ones of my brother weren't lies. Nobody else had his specific, tiny birthmarks, his moles, his structure. Nobody photoshopping a picture would know him well enough to include that.

_It couldn't have been Mal, _I had told Morgan while he was bound. _He didn't have it in him._

_But you still know it, _he had said, softly.

And as for my father… my god, it wasn't pleasant, but it was easy to imagine. I had always known he was not an honest man.

How far could I get if I just tried to leave? Would Morgan let me go? Would I be able to elude him even if he was determined to stop me?

Because I still didn't know what to do with him yet. If I was honest with myself, what he had done was not at all far removed from what I had almost gone through with—and he was more certain of their guilt than I had been of his.

Did he kill innocents as well?

I glanced at the digital clock on his bedside table—12:14 p.m. I still had no idea when he usually came back; it felt sporadic, but even if he always returned at 5:30 on the button I could not have known it.

Pacing the room, I tried to come up with a plan.

Perhaps the best way to get him off my tail would be to earn his trust.

I picked up the remnants of the cuffs. I was well and truly done with these now, no putting them back together. But if I demonstrated that I could have left, but didn't, that I had every ability to go but had stayed put, perhaps he could trust me. My agency didn't do much to help me on that, but then, he already knew I wasn't one to sit still when I had any power to do otherwise.

Still jumpy as hell, I retreated down the stairs again, keeping my destroyed cuffs. I needed a weapon of some sort in case he tried to punish me; my first choice was the shovel I had found earlier.

I pulled the folding chair up the the metal table and tried to read, but he was back before long. He came down the stairs, and my heart leapt to my throat—his eyes widened, taking in what I had done. I got to my feet, tense.

"Well," he said, staring at my unbound limbs.

"Hope you don't mind," I replied.

He stepped inside and leaned against the wall opposite me. "Why didn't you go?"

The truth came out. No lie would be as convincing. "I wanted you to trust me more. I figured that if you saw my first impulse wasn't to go to the police, you might be more able to let me free."

"I see." He was looking at my wrists. "How did you manage it?" Seeing me hesitate, he clarified, "I'm not going to reinforce the restraints, if that's what you're thinking."

"I got through the door—did you know it was not well-braced?—and used the garden shears in the garage cut them."

"But what about the cuffs themselves? The shears wouldn't've…"

"I found your keys," I said, wondering how many pairs he had around the house. Judging by his eyes, there was only the one I had found.

"Where?" he asked quietly.

I faltered, feeling truly afraid for the first time today. "In the A.C. Unit in your room."

Whatever he was thinking, it had been confirmed. He swallowed. "What made you look there?"

"They weren't anywhere else," I answered dully. I still suspected that he had set me up. "Did you leave the door like that on purpose?"

"Yes. I was outside."

I knew it! "Did you not hear me screwing around in here? Why didn't you come back in?"

"I just watched the doors to see if you would escape. You didn't."

"Good grief, Morgan." I laughed.

He folded his arms, appraising me. "Let's go get dinner. I expect you're sick of being cooped up in here."

I hesitated. "If people are looking for me, I shouldn't show my face at the moment."

"We'll go somewhere that won't be a problem." He extended his hand, offering me a bag I hadn't noticed before. "I got you clothes. I hope they fit ok."

He left me to change. In the bag were a pair of plain jeans, cotton underwear, and a long-sleeved polo shirt to hide my wrists. Apparently, he knew enough about female anatomy to know that any attempt to guess a woman's bra size was just futile; I wore the one I had had on for days. The rest fit fine, though the pants were a little loose.

"Mind if I borrow a belt?" I asked, coming out of my old prison.

"Sure." I followed him up the stairs and accepted a canvas belt that could close at any size. My pants stayed on.

It occurred to me that he might be taking me somewhere to dispose of me. But if he was going to kill me, he would be better off doing it in his home.

He took me out of town to a restaurant with a balcony in the back, going to the counter to order for us both while I took a corner seat outside, facing the ocean. I closed my eyes, letting the salty air bathe my face. Only a day ago (I thought; I was starting to lose track) I thought I might rot in a basement, and never see another person. And now here I was.

Morgan came back with drinks, setting them on the table sitting across from me.

"Think anybody will recognize you?" I asked, squinting at him.

"No."

I took his cue and silenced, watching the sea instead until our food came. We ate, still conversationless.

"I think," I began quietly. He looked at me immediately, focused. "We both have motive to kill each other. You executed my family, and I could ruin you." He had the upper hand, and I knew it. But I also knew that if he was going to get rid of me, he ought to have done it by now. Even more important, I didn't sense that he bore me malevolence. I was tired of being afraid. "And so far, both of us are still alive."

"_Do _you want to turn me in?" he asked, eyes searching mine.

"Have you ever killed anyone innocent?" I asked, putting his question aside.

"Yes," Morgan answered. He was measuring up my response, watching me think. "I have. An accident. But even if I hadn't, you can't have forgiven me."

He was right. "I mourned my brother. My father… It doesn't make sense, but I can't feel anything about it. I cried, but I didn't feel. I don't know if it's shock, or just an inability I have to be remorseful about it." I shrugged, but I was telling the truth. "I would ask if that makes me a psychopath, but I reckon I would be asking the wrong person."

"You would be." His mouth twisted.

"So why do you do it? Why go after all of these people?"

He folded his arms on the table, silent, considering. "I need to."

"Why? Do you have some rabid passion for justice, or do you enjoy it?"

I must have hit a nerve. He stopped breathing.

"It makes me alive," he said.

I stared at him. "What keeps you to… to murderers, then?"

"A code." He swallowed, his eyes hollow. "There's a code I follow. People who kill innocents. People who know better. Sick fucks who don't care about the lives they're destroying." He paused, then summarized what I was thinking. "People like me, except without my code."

"Oh." I ran a hand through my hair, blank. These were strange things to hear. But the revelations about my family had drained me of any ability to be afraid of him right now. They had killed innocents, and he had not—mostly.

"Are you ready to go?" He asked. I nodded, getting up and making my way to his car, keeping my face lowered, not meeting anybody's eyes.

"I need to ask you something," he said, buckling his safety belt.

"What is it?"

"I need to know if there's anything in your house that might link you to me."

I thought it through, and shook my head. "No. I didn't write anything down."

"No addresses, nothing?"

"No. I remember numbers. I can see them when I'm looking for them."

"How about your web history? Anything that might show up?"

"No. I cleared the cache every day; did it before I came after you." I smiled a little. "My dad was a cop, remember? I learned how to hide stuff. Besides, that machine was locked down like a freight train already. I would be surprised if they even got it to boot."

Morgan nodded, getting onto the highway and accelerating to the speed limit. "Good."

"You believe me?" I asked, surprised.

He actually laughed. "Phoebe, we've been sounding each other out so hard, I think you would tell me to my face if you were considering killing me."

…He was right. It was a sick twist of irony that—

"What a sick twist of irony that the person I feel free to tell the truth to is a serial killer," I said aloud. "You're the only one who takes it."

His mouth twitched appreciatively. "I could say the same," he said, "but for the serial killer bit."

"…yeah."

"Do you want to go back?" He asked, out of the blue. "Back to your home? Your life?"

I shrugged. "It's irrelevant. My da- my old family is gone. Nothing else to go back to. Even if they were alive, there would be nothing left to go back to." I wondered to myself whether, if I had found out about them, I would have attacked them myself.

"No other family?"

"Not really. I'm a foster kid. So was Mal."

"I knew he was. I didn't know you were as well." He paused. "So was I."

"Really? Were they ok to you?"

He nodded. "They were. Especially Harry. He.." Morgan glanced at me. "It's his code I follow."

"He knew about you?" I stared at him.

"Yes, he knew. He spotted it before I did. Helped me hone it, channel it." He took a moment, choosing his next words carefully. "But I have to wonder what I would be if he had not opened those doors for me."

I was silent for a while, watching the road slip under the car. "Do you think you're a bad person?" I asked finally.

He gave a small shrug. "I don't think I can be correctly human and enjoy what I do."

I stared at ahead, seeing absolutely nothing. "I don't give a damn how it makes you feel. If you've learned to control, to conduct your own will, then you're a good deal better off than most humans I know." I turned to look out of my window. "Principles are more indicative. Feelings never seem to be what they're supposed to be, anyway."

I felt his eyes on me. They rested on my face, curiously seeking my thoughts. But I had nothing more to say, and neither did he.


End file.
